Family True To The Finish

Restoring A Tradition Of Pride Keeps Rural Craftsmen On Top

July 07, 1991|By Valerie Burd.

There`s no one around like Haydon McPartland.

At least, that`s what the people with the damaged antique tables, chairs and Empire sofas say. They don`t mind traveling all the way out to Wasco, to Kings Mill, the little stone mill four miles west of St. Charles on Illinois Highway 64, where MacPartland, his wife, four children and a few superior craftsmen work together to restore damaged treasures to their former glory.

``It was worth it to travel out there,`` says one client, Herman Wren, proprietor of Aladdin`s Lamp, an antique store on Sheridan Road in Highland Park. ``I feel generally we`re living in a world of mediocrity. It`s a great privilege to find someone like him-a true craftsman.``

Wren went in search of someone who restores fine antiques after acquiring a unique antique games table eight years ago in an estate sale. The folding table, made in the early 1800s in New York by French immigrant cabinetmaker Charles Lannier, had brass inlay and a pedestal of two American eagles covered in gold leaf. An identical table by Lannier is owned by the Maryland Historical Society; a Lannier sofa table graces the Red Room in the White House.

The table, Wren said, was the finest thing he had ever purchased for his business; he wanted only an expert craftsman to touch it.

``There`s no way you can hurry this man,`` Wren said. ``He tells you right off, it`s going to take months. He had that table for four months. A lot of the gold leaf on the eagles was gone and some of the brass inlay was missing or out of place. He did an exceptional job. I have since recommended him to anyone who needs that type of expert work on any fine piece of furniture.``

Wren`s Lannier table was subsequently auctioned at Sotheby`s in New York City, where it sold for almost $50,000. Today, Wren says, the table would be worth twice that much.

McPartland, a soft-spoken, earnest man who clearly loves working with wood, takes such tasks in stride. His company`s credits include refinishing a suite at the Drake Hotel in preparation for a visit by Princess Margaret of England, and repairing a leather-topped table for the British Consulatein Chicago.

``Would you believe that table for the consulate arrived in a limousine?`` McPartland asks, smiling.

Although most of his clients do not transport their antiques in limousines, the repair work they request is often as time consuming and difficult as anything requested by the British Consulate.

On a tour of his workshop at Kings Mill, McPartland points out a table top of delicate wood and ivory inlays, recently meticulously restored. Two matching chairs, also covered with inlays, are waiting for buffing after their restoration.

Such delicate inlay work is common for Kings Mill craftsmen. Dr. and Mrs. Arthur Barnett of West Chicago, who came across Kings Mill while out for a drive, had McPartland do a similar job for them.

``We went in and did an interview with him and found out he had a very good cabinetry store,`` Barnett said. ``He does a tremendous job there. The first piece he did for us was fixing the top of a dining room table. It was a large teakwood table. It was tough, but he really restored it very well. The inlay tabletops we bought in Africa, but they were actually from India. They came here in pieces.``

In addition to the wood restoration, McPartland restored a sofa and chairs for the Barnetts, including the reupholstery work. Kings Mill carries upholstery fabrics as well as Oriental rugs.

Restoration of fine furniture has enhanced McPartland`s reputation as a craftsman, but it isn`t the extent of his business.

``Our bread and butter is all the broken chairs the farmers bring in to be repaired,`` he said, laughing.

McPartland came by his trade naturally. His grandfather Hayden de Gignac made shipping boxes and started making furniture in the 1930s for Marshall Field and Co. and Sears, Roebuck & Co. as well as furniture parts for All Steel in Aurora. He was so good at the furniture work, McPartland said, that de Gignac dropped everything else and went into furniture repair.

``The first job I had in his shop was 31 years ago,`` McPartland said.

``He gave me an old black rocker and told me to scrape all the paint off with a piece of broken glass. I really worked hard. Of course, we don`t strip furniture like that today, but it taught me patience. I still have that rocker at home.``

McPartland bought the business from his grandfather in 1969 and began repairing the building, a 150-year-old grist mill that had been moved to its present site in Wasco in 1890 with horses and skids when its stream was dammed to make Fisher`s Lake.

``It was Wandzer Milk`s first place of business,`` McPartland said. ``It was known as the Wasco Creamery. We still have some of the special milk cans, zinc-lined, that they used.``